Mother Heroine Award: How Putin Seeks to Confront the Demographic Crisis in Russia

In the face of the worsening demographic crisis due to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, and in light of the country's population that has been declining almost continuously for decades; Russian President Vladimir Putin has revived the Mother Heroine award, which is given to women who give birth to 10 or more children, according to Russian media.

In turn, some Kremlin critics accused Putin of encouraging women to produce cannon fodder for the Russian army, The Times reported on August 16, 2022.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia has lost more than 43,000 soldiers from February 24 to August 15, according to Ukrainian Defense Ministry figures.

 

A Worsening Crisis

As Russia faces societal pressure over its invasion of Ukraine; Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on August 16, 2022, to revive the Mother Heroine title, which is a financial award that will be awarded to women who bear and raise 10 or more children, according to the Moscow Times on August 16, 2022.

Under Putin's decree, women who receive the title will be awarded a one-time payment of one million rubles ($16,000) after the tenth child reaches his first year, provided that all the children are alive and under the care of the mother at the same time, the children must also be citizens of the Russian Federation.

Women who lose their children as a result of a battle, a terrorist act, or an emergency can also get this money.

The winners will be awarded gold medals adorned with the Russian flag and the state emblem.

Although Ukraine was not mentioned in the reasons for reviving this award, The Times asserted that its revival is an attempt to stimulate population growth, as Russia faces a demographic crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

According to the Russian census website, Rosstat, the country lost more than 382,000 people in the period from January to June 2022 as a result of the number of deaths exceeding the number of births.

In addition, Russia suffers heavy casualties among the troops in Ukraine, but the true number of casualties has not been officially disclosed.

It is noteworthy that the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, had estimated that about 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the Ukraine war, and up to 45,000 others were wounded.

The average age of Russian dead is just 21, as well as hundreds of thousands of people emigrating from Russia since the start of the war, according to The Times.

Whereas the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs predicts that Russia will continue to die at a rate of 316,000 people annually, and by 2050 it will retain only 133 million people compared to 145 million now.

The United Nations also predicted that in a worst-case scenario, Russia's population could drop to just 83 million by 2100.

 

A Soviet-Era Award

The Mother Heroine Award was established for the first time by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to encourage women to have children after the death of tens of millions of Soviets during World War II, specifically between 1944 and 1945.

More than 400,000 Russian citizens won the award until it was repealed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to The Times.

Dr. Kristin Roth-Ey, Associate Professor in the School of Slavic and Eastern European Studies at University College London, told The Washington Post on August 17, 2022: "The issue of childbearing in the Soviet era was related to being a good citizen serving his country."

"The award was created when the Soviet Union was trying to plan for post-war reconstruction, supporting families as the mainstay of Soviet society," she added.

She explained that "other measures include better health care for women, giving them financial aid, and making divorce transactions more difficult for married people."

The state social insurance fund also grants Russian women many privileges once they have children; as maternity and child benefits are covered, the mother receives a salary of between $200 and $400 per month.

In the event of having or adopting a second child, the family receives a lump payment of 300,000 rubles ($5,000).

The government is also constantly working to improve the maternity care system and develop technologies for newborns' intensive care and critical care.

As for working mothers, they are entitled to 140 days of maternity leave, and it may reach about 200 days, taking the full salary.

Beginning in 2008, the Kremlin has also awarded the Order of Parental Glory to parents with more than 7 children, who receive 50,000 rubles ($825) and a certificate when their seventh child reaches the age of three.

In this context, The Times revealed that Putin also announced that recipients of the Order of Parental Glory would receive additional incentives amounting to 700,000 rubles ($11,460).

Despite all these efforts, a 2019 government report said Russia's population could drop by more than 12 million by 2035.

 

Putin's Haunt

Russian President Vladimir Putin had warned for years of the threat to his country's economic and geopolitical future due to a declining population, in conjunction with government attempts to increase the birth rate through family subsidies.

During his annual address in 2020, Putin said: "Our historical responsibility is not only to break out of the demographic trap but also to ensure sustainable natural growth of the population by the middle of the next decade."

In December 2021, Putin revealed Russia's biggest challenges, pointing to the demographic growth crisis that his country is experiencing.

Putin said, during a major annual press conference, during which he spoke about the most pressing issues on the internal and external agenda of the state: "The 146 million people, the country's population, is absolutely not enough for a country the size of Russia (more than 17.1 million square km), which is the largest country in the world by area."

He explained that the number of people who are able to work is 80 million people, explaining that this is a little, especially for the development of infrastructure in a country the size of Russia, which complains of a shortage of labor.

During the COVID-19 pandemic period that stretched from October 2020 to September 2021, Moscow suffered its largest natural population decline since World War II, losing nearly one million people, according to a Foreign Policy magazine report published on January 3, 2022.

"When the Soviet Union collapsed, the country slipped into a serious demographic crisis," demographic expert Alain Blum at the National Institute for Demographic Studies told France 24.

"It is said that Putin himself considers this issue of paramount importance and always mentions it in his speeches, and some believe that Putin regards the population as a sign of the strength of the state," Blum added.

It is noteworthy that the Russian President had admitted at his annual press conference for 2019 that the possibility of the evacuation of Russia from its population haunts him.

Reversing the demographic crisis by the end of his term in 2024 was one of the key pledges Putin made during his 2018 re-election campaign.

In turn, Dr. Nasr al-Yousef, writer and analyst specializing in Russian affairs, explained, in a statement to Al-Estiklal, that "the demographic factor was a big problem for Russia, specifically the Slavic race, which is one of its components. This problem worsened a lot after World War II, and Russia did not get rid of it until the end of the seventies of the last century."

"We must distinguish between the Soviet Union in general, which included many Islamic peoples who never suffered from a demographic crisis, and Russia—the Slavic race in particular—which is the skeleton of the Russian state, that is, in fact, suffering from a demographic crisis, which exacerbated after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the spread of chaos, the Slavs lost hope for a good future, and women refrained from childbearing due to lack of confidence in the future," he added.

Dr. al-Youssef pointed out that "when Putin assumed power in Russia, he began to search for solutions to this intractable problem, as he allocated very large incentives to Slavic women to encourage them to have children, whether within or outside marriage. What is important for Putin is to increase the Slavic component among the components of the Russian state."

Dr. al-Yousef also indicated that "a large percentage of Russian Slavic women give birth to only one or two children. Certainly, for the Russian state to remain Slavic-Russian in every sense of the word, the Slavic component must constitute more than 60% compared to the components of the other state [Tatars, Dagestanis, Ingush, and Chechens]."